35.7 Tons of Solid Waste Removed From Echo Park, Could Reopen by End of May According to LASAN
According to LASAN documents, posted by the Los Angeles Times Thursday, cleanup crews removed 723.5 pounds of biological waste and 300 pounds of hazardous waste, which included ignitables, paint, sharp objects and drug paraphernalia.
Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment crews removed 35.7 tons of solid waste from Echo Park Lake since the park's closure on March 25, and a news report Thursday indicated that the park could reopen by the end of the month.
The project to clean up and repair the park cost $600,000, according to a Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners report issued before the park's closure.
Word spread on March 22 that the park would be closed for repairs, but many in the community saw it as a veiled effort to remove the hundreds of unhoused Angelenos that took up residency in the park during the COVID-19 pandemic. The move was met with large protests, in which officers arrested 182 people. Protesters blasted the city for forcing the park's residents out of an area that had grown into a supportive community -- including a vegetable garden, working showers and a shared kitchen.
Councilman Mitch O'Farrell and Mayor Eric Garcetti declared the operation a success, citing that the park's residents were offered housing. However, opponents of the park's clearing, including a coalition of faculty at USC, UCLA, UC Irvine and Occidental College, pointed out that most of the housing options were temporary and some were in congregate shelters amid a pandemic.
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the LAPD's role in the clearing and response to protesters, which included detaining legal observers and journalists covering the protests.
“Taking militarized police action to displace people who are already displaced is cruel and does nothing to bolster public safety. Mass arrests of protesters, legal observers and journalists will not keep the city's brutal, ill-conceived actions from being known. The city leaders who approved this approach should be held accountable,” the ACLU said after the protests.
The police response also prompted the City Council Wednesday to request a report from the LAPD on its detention of journalists during the demonstrations and the department's broader conduct toward the media.
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Can you imagine the smell.
What should have happened is the people squatting there should have been put in leg irons and then made to clean up the mess they made. Once done they then should have been bused to the Canadian border and released with $20 and a do not return card.
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The part they left out, was the rat population has exploded because of it, and the plague is back with hantavirus too.
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been more fun to wait to early morning turn several semi trailers of wild hogs loose in the park
got clean it up any way might as well make it worth the effort
any bets on by summers end it will be 2x as bad
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